Baby Steps

Why is it that even though I had expected for it to take two years for Darren and I to truly feel adjusted I am still disappointed with where we are in the scheme of things?
There are two ways to look at things. One, it's only been seven months and we have jobs, a house, school, after-school activities, family, and some great friends. Two, oy it's been seven months and there is still so much that feels unsettled. We would like to be more involved in fellowship and we have yet to add the dog to the household.
This is not to mention the cat that according to the kids should come quickly after. Eli was also nice enough to point out today that we have yet to plant the vegetables. As kids often do he pointed out something I had yet to guilt myself over and I quickly started judging myself for not starting this "very important" task earlier.
It reminds so much of that Bill Murray movie I didn't even like. And anyone who knows me knows I am not one to take baby steps to do anything. Running leaps into mud puddles without galoshes is more the way I like to live my life.
I sometimes get in the car and feel as though I have conquered TRANSITION. I have arrived! Ha! This is when I quickly take two steps backward to make up for that one step forward. I find out about the two steps backward the minute I get to where ever I was going and I have forgotten one important piece of information or missed a cultural clue.
Usually it's when I think I have mastered the whole being mother of two boys in Australia thing until I find out that I have missed something and have about a thousand things to learn until I master this part of living life in a new place.
Thankfully transition has so many moments when it is just plain silly.
I answer the phone all the time at work but not one Australian that I have answered the phone for has gotten my name right. The other day I went back and forth with a lady quite a few times.
"Good afternoon this is Christa speaking."
"Hello I am speaking to Christina?"
"Christa"
"Kristen?"
"Christa"
"Chrissie?"
'Uh...Yeah sure"
Someone tell me why this is cause I don't understand it, but I am thinking maybe being Christa is not so important. So... to Australia I say, " If you would like me to be Chris, Kristen, Chrissie, Christina, then that's fine but I will never learn to say Adidas correctly cause I think it's adIdas and you think it's adEHdas. I will never be able to say Puma the way you do because I think it's P oooo ma and you all think it's P eww ma. I will be "The Yank" if you consent to allow me to say "You All" once in a while. I will buy my own cream for my coffee and not purchase coffee that is watered down espresso made with skim milk if you ignore the fact that it occasionally takes me a few seconds to figure out how to pull out of a parking space because I like the other side of the road. I will put up with the fact my Television shows run a month late and I am watching the Christmas episodes on Valentines' Day if you will allow me to speak to my children in Chinese, eat Jiao Zi, make fried rice, travel Perth endlessly looking for Northern Chinese food and desperately want to hear loud bangs around mid-February every year."
Perhaps this is the funniest thing that has happened to us this month. Our children asked me tonight, " Are we having real jiao zi or that fake kind?" For fake kind please read ravioli. I told them that we were having both because tonight was leftovers night. They both promptly informed me they do not care for the fake kind and could they please just have real jiao zi. Sorry to all the Italians they just insulted out there.